Telemarketing, i.e., the use of telecommunications systems for sales purposes, is widely used by retailers, wholesalers, or more generally, vendors for selling services and equipment and for providing customer information with respect to such sales. A vendor-provided automatic call distributor (ACD) typically connects customers calling that vendor to one of a group of attendants, generally at one premise, who accept orders and/or provide customer information to the caller. The routing and queuing functions provided by the ACD preferably makes most efficient use of all available agents, allowing the agents time between calls to perform necessary and ancillary functions related to customer service, while minimizing delays and busy signals to the customer.
Since an ACD services a single premise, efficient management of the queue at a premise is limited. Methods to manage incoming calls among different premises have included both network and premises based solutions. An example of a premises based solution is the programming of each ACD to determine if its existing capacity threshold is exceeded. If the capacity threshold is exceeded, the affected ACD queries a first "overflow" ACD via an interflow trunk to determine if it can accept the call without exceeding its threshold. If the threshold is not exceeded, the "overflow" ACD will accept the call. If the ACD threshold will be exceeded, the next overflow ACD is queried via another interflow transfer, and the process of call acceptance or additional ACD queries is repeated until the call is ultimately accepted by an ACD, is blocked, or the calling party disconnects. This solution is undesirable because of the expense of required interflow trunks and the general inability of the method to address call congestion at any ACD on a campaign-by-campaign basis.
An example of a network solution is the use of the 800 service Service Management System (SMS) to realize multi-locational capabilities. For example, based on traffic statistics to various premises, as well as the time zone and related staffing of the respective premises, calls to telemarketing agents via 800 numbers are routed by the network to an appropriate premise, which then receives the call and routes it to an agent via the premise ACD. This type of routing is based on statistical averages, and therefore, cannot account for realtime fluctuations in the calling load. Furthermore, such a method only accounts for calls to 800 numbers; customer service premises may also receive a large number of calls via local exchange companies (LECs) as well as foreign exchanges.
Thus, rather than focusing on maintaining balanced levels of service among ACDs, the prior art has focused primarily on methods that prevent the blocking of calls from the public switched telecommunications network (PSTN) at any of a plurality of ACDS or methods that result in balanced distribution of calls among a plurality of ACDs where access to the network of ACDs is gained through one toll-free telephone number. The following patents are illustrative of this prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,860 issued to R. P. Weber on Mar. 4, 1980, allows calls to be allocated to individual ACDs on a fixed percentage basis as specified by the telemarketer. This method does not have the capability to dynamically adapt to variable conditions encountered when load balancing is attempted. Other arrangements have been devised where load balancing is attempted by semiautomatic means.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,094 issued to R. L. Asmuth et al. on Sep. 9, 1986, describes a method that allows a telemarketer to customize 800 service call processing logic based on additional call processing instructions obtained from a call originator. While this method may be used to redirect call among ACDs in response to information provided by call originators, its usefulness as a means of load balancing is dependent upon the ability of the telemarketer to change parameters and re-initiate the customer record program that directs specific announcements to callers. This method is ill prepared to meet a telemarketer's need to modify call processing logic in order to 14 accomplish real-time load balancing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,983 issued to J. C. Frauenthal et al. on Apr. 12, 1988, describes a method for balancing 800 telephone service call loads based on the state of traffic congestion at each of the multiple locations receiving calls. A switching office receiving a call destined for one of the telemarketer's ACDs may query a central database to determine the current state of traffic congestion for a plurality of the telemarketer's ACDs and--based on that information--direct the call to an alternate ACD when warranted. This method is limited to load balancing of premises queues, and does not consider the fact that call handling capabilities may vary among locations receiving calls.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,718 issued to S. D. McNabb and R. S. Yien on Nov. 29, 1988, describes a method and network arrangement for compiling PSTN traffic analysis data for an 800 telephone service, based on call data collected through a common channel signaling (CCS) network. The objective of the McNabb method is to contemporaneously reduce total call blocking to multiple TCs having specialized call handling capabilities that may differ among locations receiving calls. This approach to load balancing relies exclusively on the telemarketer's knowledge of 800 service call volume for a single 800 number and does not consider ACD performance data or any other information that may be obtained from the telemarketer's premises.
In order to improve multi-locational efficiency and dynamic response to load changes, U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,983 issued to Percy B. Brown et al. on Nov. 17, 1992 provides a premises-based telemarketing agent management system for managing a telemarketing complex in which a traffic control center processor receives information from both telemarketer premises-based information sources and PSTN-based information sources, and processes this information in order to dynamically and automatically generate signals for implementing call routing changes needed to balance service among telecommunications centers in the telemarketing complex. However, even such a "real-time" system is limited by having the telemarketing premises management system dynamically control the routing of future calls based on calls already received at the ACDs of the telemarketing complex. Further, such dynamic control requires changing call processing logic programs stored in the PSTN, or recommending changes in staffing levels, or a combination thereof. Such a system, although responsive to the "real time" call load, is limited to managing the call load at a higher level, which generally requires a longer response time, less control, and an inherently more approximate global solution than, for example, control on a call-by-call basis.
Thus, among other limitations, prior art solutions require through-network connections and premises queuing that typically do not realize multi-locational efficiencies and true real time response.